Architecture enthusiasts and preservationists Earl Pinchuk, left and Gary Blair both from Montreal, Canada, browse the bookstore at the Palm Springs Art Museum’s new Architecture and Design Center on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2013. The bookstore was made in the vault of the former bank. The two men flew in for the grand opening and said they had been waiting for a couple of years for this place to open.

If you find malls maddening and online trolling tedious, there’s a better way to nail the best buys without breaking the bank. Some of the Inland region’s museum gift shops are filled with bright and shiny objects that beg to be bagged for a loved one or yourself.

Obviously, we’re not talking about keychains, caps and plastic toys, but one-of-a-kind creations. These include an assortment by local artists, including ornaments, jewelry, pottery, clothing, accessories, photographs, notecards and garden sculptures, typically ranging from a dollar to several hundred bucks. What’s more, you needn’t pay an admission fee at most regional museums if you want to skip the curated exhibitions and skedaddle into the store.

Check out these little shops of wonders for some happy hunting. The stores are open during museum hours.

Gift shop at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum

The shop sells pottery, metal work, prints and other items from local artisans, children’s gifts, and cultural and natural history publications. The museum houses more than 100,000 artifacts and 2,000 linear feet of archives pertaining to its natural history, anthropology and history collections.

Laurie Lucas started at The Press-Enterprise in 1981 in the human interest section called Sidelight. Since then she has written mostly features but also detoured into municipal meetings, covering Eastvale, Moreno Valley, Perris, Canyon Lake and Lake Elsinore. After a couple of years as a business reporter, she returned in 2014 to features. She now writes mostly profiles, arts and entertainment stories, dining profiles and a weekly Foodie Empire column. She would love to be a musician, singer dancer, artist, author or scratch cook. But because she’s not, she enjoys a vicarious thrill writing about other people’s talents.

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